Through the COVID-19’s challenging times, businesses are operating remotely to respect the governmental confinement regulations. Due to the limited number of options, interaction and freedom, employees may often feel low morale and productivity. Therefore, it is crucial to invest in improving team building post-Coronavirus to continue work with as much normalcy as possible, and keeping a good morale among the staff.

Thankfully, there are ways to connect effectively with our colleagues and keep in constant touch even while working from home. Team building is an exceptional way to improve motivation, productivity, solidarity, and communication which can help employees during difficult times like a crisis. However, Team building virtually requires different qualities and methods than face-to-face ones.

Making sure the employees are relaxed and having fun during team building activities is a priority. These should not stress or overwhelm them further after long days of work. Therefore, keep the activities simple, and easy to learn.

Secondly, make sure that the game is inclusive. For example, one that is in Spanish, but some employees do not speak it can be disappointing and make them feel left out. Similarly, a game which demands extensive knowledge about a certain pop-culture topic evokes the same sentiment. Instead, conducting the activity in a language that everyone understands, or a topic everybody knows of would have more positive responses. Therefore, the activities should engage the entire workforce and not a selected few as it can brew a negative ‘us-vs-them’ attitude. This may harm company culture especially during volatile times like a crisis.

During these games, having a chat or a call going on with everybody can get everybody more involved and prevent distractions. This makes the activity fun, and interactive. This may also show the employees how their colleagues work under stress or how competitive they are, which can be valuable during future collaborative events such as conferences, negotiations, etc. Some examples of such activities include happy hour, online multi-player games, drawing together, trivia quizzes, movies, charades, etc. If possible, add winning prizes or other incentives can improve engagement and excitement.

In conclusion, managers should not neglect team building activities because employees are out of office. It is now more important than ever because of the crisis that company culture should be nurtured and improved. Employees need to be looking forward to coming back to office, for which they need to foster good relationships and appreciation for the workplace they contribute to. Improving Team Building Post-Coronavirus is an efficient, simple and easy way to serve this purpose.

References:

1. Team-Building And Management In A Brave New Virtual World, Apr 8, 2020, Forbes.